1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer program product, system, and method for promoting products in a virtual world.
2. Description of the Related Art
Virtual worlds, such as Massive Multiplayer Online Social Games and metaverse, are extremely popular, having millions of users. A virtual world is an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users, represented by avatars, through an online interface. Virtual worlds provide new levels of socialization, where users can experience sensations and interact with others in a similar way to real life. A virtual world can have anything one might encounter in the real world as well as objects and phenomena with no real-life counterparts. A virtual world provider has servers implementing simulation engines to render the virtual world and present to users over a network, such as the Internet.
SECOND LIFE® is a popular virtual world platform that offers its residents the opportunities for building new places, often comprised of terrain, buildings and objects, where users seek services just like in real life. (SECOND LIFE is a registered trademark of Linden Research, Inc.) Virtual worlds, such as SECOND LIFE, differ from traditional online games, where players have a particular goal to achieve and are limited to interact with the preexistent environment. Virtual worlds allow users to move freely on their own throughout the world without limitation, in an unscripted manner, and without predefined objectives.
Virtual worlds may also implement a virtual economy, including virtual currency. The virtual economy results from the interaction of participants in the virtual world. Participants may trade goods and use virtual currency to purchase assets of other participants in the virtual world. The value of objects in a virtual economy is usually linked to their usefulness and the difficulty of obtaining them. The investment of real world resources (time, membership fees, etc.) in acquisition of wealth in a virtual economy may contribute to the real world value of virtual objects.
Some real world businesses maintain virtual stores in a virtual world to advertise their products. This allows the users, through their virtual world avatar, to browse the latest and innovative products through the virtual world store, although purchase of the real world products would occur outside of the virtual world. Further, some clothing companies have provided virtual world access to virtual world representations of the clothing the companies sell in the real world, so avatars of users may wear and present representations of that clothing in the virtual world.
There is a need in the art for improved techniques for advertising products in a virtual world.